THE LOOP

Not mak­ing the Com­rades cut- off hurts. The hours you’ve spent on the road, the fam­ily time you’ve sac­ri­ficed, and painful feet and mus­cles, all mean noth­ing if there’s no medal. Right? Wrong. At this year’s Com­rades, my mind tried to tell me I wasn’t good enough, but I re­fused to lis­ten to it. I thought of my wife Ja­nine and my sis­ter Mam­sie, who’d given up their Sun­day to sup­port me. I had taken off my wed­ding ring, given it to Ja­nine, and had told her I would trade my medal for it, at the fin­ish in Pi­eter­mar­itzburg. I poured my heart and soul into it, and achieved some­thing enor­mous. In the end it wasn’t my mind that let me down; it was my legs. Next year, I’ll toughen up my legs, and re­turn with an even stronger mind. – ZOLA MBULAWA, CAPE TOWN

HAIL THE KING

Bruce Fordyce de­serves a Com­rades medal. He won the race nine times, and he did so without the help of a coach. The Com­rades is pop­u­lar, both coun­try­wide and in­ter­nat ional ly, be­cause of Fordyce’s ster­ling con­tri­bu­tions, both on and off the field. He is a walk­ing Com­rades en­cy­clopae­dia, al­ways happy to share his training ad­vice, and his sin­gle­minded de­ter­mi­na­tion and un­shak­able sense of pur­pose are an in­spi­ra­tion to all. – THEMBA J NKOSI, MADADENI